Just one problem. No one can tell you what comprehensive legislation actually means. Literally, it would have to mean that nothing can be done except under the watchful eye of a bureaucrat. But that would be impossible. Moreover, wouldn’t that bureaucrat have to be watched by another bureaucrat just in case he was corrupt or prone to daydreaming?And so on ad infinitum.

The upshot is that the word comprehensive really means nothing. It’s just an arrow in the government’s propaganda quiver that is pulled out whenever politicians seek more power than they have — which is already considerable.

Sheldon Richman is the former editor of The Freeman and TheFreemanOnline.org, and a contributor to The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. He is the author of Separating School and State: How to Liberate America's Families.